Ng. Castle et Dg. Shea, THE EFFECTS OF FOR-PROFIT AND NOT-FOR-PROFIT FACILITY STATUS ON THE QUALITY OF CARE FOR NURSING-HOME RESIDENTS WITH MENTAL ILLNESSES, Research on aging, 20(2), 1998, pp. 246-263
This article examines whether a relationship exists between ownership
status (for-profit and not-for-profit) of nursing homes and the qualit
y of care for residents who are mentally ill. Rather than looking for
an overall indicator of differences in quality between these ownership
types, as other studies have done, three quality indicators are exami
ned: structure, process, and outcome. Also, different types of nursing
homes are examined by size and certification level. The authors fail
to find consistent evidence that for-profit nursing homes provide poor
er quality care to mentally ill residents using measures of structure,
process, and outcome; they did find, however, that nursing homes may
modify their approach to caring for these residents. That is, the size
of the facility and the certification level could be important factor
s in the quality of the mental health care of nursing home residents.